


An Unconditional Odyssey

by Deep_South



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy is a Hot Mess, Billy just has a really bad flu, Billy needs someone to care, Billy tries to fill a void by hitting on mothers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It doesn’t work, M/M, Mommy Issues, angst then fluff, like an alarming amount of third act fluff, there is no mind flayer here, turns out Steve cares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22448662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deep_South/pseuds/Deep_South
Summary: In the most fundamental way, Hawkins’ mothers were a lot like they had been in California, with plenty of time on their hands now that their children were in high school: bored and restless with their husbands and looking for an orgasm. Billy figured it was a small enough price to pay. That if he played his role and played it well, he’d be rewarded afterwards. That for a few brief moments, before and after, when they swooped in to kiss his cheek or offer him bus fare, Billy would be able to feel the ghostly imprint of what it felt like to be in the presence of a mother who cared.(Or: Billy is drowning on dry land and Steve, having watched Billy from the sidelines for as long as he has, realizes just how much Billy needs somebody to care).
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 36
Kudos: 416





	An Unconditional Odyssey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ihni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihni/gifts).



> Ok, so this fic has been on my hard drive since August and I never posted it because, well, even though it does have explicit Harringrove in it, it doesn’t really have any explicit _sex_ in it, so part of me was like, well then what’s the point?! But then I thought about all the really wonderful T-rated authors and works in this fandom that I absolutely adore that don’t always have sex in them either, and so they inspired me to post this anyway. So here this is in case there is someone out there who might want to read it…. 
> 
> (Possible warning(?): This fic started as kind of an exploratory thought experiment as to why a canon-Billy with all his mother issues might indeed try and hit on all the Hawkins’ mothers even if he wasn’t actually sexually into it. (In part based off of a very Billy Hargrove like friend I had in high school, who had similar abandonment issues and indeed tried to hit on every mother they met (and who succeeded way more times in that endeavor than they should have)). So, I guess a slight warning for those who care is that there are mentions (once again nothing super explicit) of Billy and past relationships with “mothers” in this for very deliberate character/story purposes.) 
> 
> *This is dedicated to Ihni for being both an amazing contributor to the Harringrove fandom and for being the first person to ever tell/assure me that it was OK to write a fic without a smut-focus ;P. So I wrote one. So lovely, I hope something in it is to your liking.*

**An Unconditional Odyssey**

Billy had always somehow, somewhere deep inside him, or maybe not even all that deeply, wondered what it would be like to have a mother. 

The maternal selection of the Hawkins' elite spread out by the pool were some funhouse version of that desire: A cautionary tale to be careful what one wished for. 

Karen was a mother. Karen had opened the door in October and had cared about her kids. Enough to know that Nancy was dating, and that Mike was always over at the Byers. The fact that Karen seemed to think Nancy would go for Billy was somehow revealing—not that she didn’t know her daughter but that she _did_. Steve was a nice boy: beautiful, preppy, and elitist, touched by privilege and confidence. But Nancy hadn’t wanted Steve. She had ended up with Jonathan: over-worn band shirts, broken ego, and a perpetual scowl—but softer than Billy, gentle around the edges. 

Jonathan Byers is what Billy could’ve been if Billy had had a mother. 

And because of that, Billy was willing to bet he was closer to Nancy’s type than anyone would expect—anyone except her mother, who knew the things that a mother should. 

Only Nancy had never been Billy’s type. But there wasn’t a mother alive who knew that. Billy had never told a mother his type and for whatever reason, with his cheek still ringing from his father’s fist and the echoed sneer of “faggot” still stinging his ears, Billy had wanted to tell Karen all about “his type.” To confess, out loud, just what he was to someone _maternal_. He had chickened out, unable to just say it, leaving the implications to linger on the air. He wanted her to pick up the thread, to ask what his type was then. She didn’t. She wasn’t his mother. 

What followed after that first interaction with Karen Wheeler wasn’t all that unprecedented in Billy’s thus far short span of a life. Billy had learned pretty quickly about how he could get a mother’s attention. Not _his_ mother. He’d never been able to figure out how to make his own mother love him enough to stay. But there were plenty of mothers in the sea. It was all just a game of needs. Billy needed a mother, and mothers had needs of their own. If Billy fulfilled theirs then they would fill his: It was a trade. That was the way that life worked. Billy understood that. 

Most of the mothers back in California worked during the day, but not all of them. The ones that stayed home were the easiest. Back then it was easy. He could skip classes on Wednesdays when Neil would go to Pasadena for work and Billy would go spend the day with a mother, picked up from the boardwalk like he had really fished them from the water. 

That was how he’d met Chelsia. She was a mother. Her kids had grown up by the ocean and lived in the city. She was radiant in the sun, gold hair tangled with the salt. Her smile on the beach familiar in a way Billy couldn’t quite place, like a warm tingle of an echo of something he’d maybe seen before and then forgotten. 

She had always made him lemonade afterwards; stroked his cheek and told him he was beautiful. Her perfume smelled like soft citrus and flowers, gardenias where his mother had worn lilies, but the likeness was there in the folds. If her husband wasn’t due home anytime soon, she would let Billy stay for dinner, something handmade that Billy never got at home. And Billy would sit in her sunlit kitchen filled emerald with the lush green of living plants. And he’d feel safe for the first time that week, breathing it in deep to hold onto the feeling. To try to keep it with him for the upcoming days. Dinner was always spicy and warm, and Billy would imagine what it would be like to have Chelsia as a mother. To be full and warm all the time. Those few moments of peace where Billy could just breathe were worth whatever work he had to do to get it. And so that’s what Billy did: he would eat her food and then her cunt as a thank you for giving him the day in her home. For giving Billy even a glimpse of what it felt like to have one. 

In the most fundamental way, Hawkins’ mothers were a lot like they had been in California, with plenty of time on their hands now that their children were in high school: bored and restless with their husbands and looking for an orgasm. Billy figured it was a small enough price to pay. That if he played his role and played it well, he’d be rewarded afterwards. That for a few brief moments, before and after, when they swooped in to kiss his cheek or offer him bus fare, Billy would be able to feel the ghostly imprint of what it felt like to be in the presence of a mother who cared.

Karen Wheeler was an easier mark for affection than most. It was in the way she would touch her hair, and how she always applied her makeup in perfect lines to go to a pool. Billy could recognize another body in need of attention, how there was an overwhelming tension that hovered around her, like she had things to give and things she wanted and neither went appreciated by those around her. Her children where selfish, didn’t know what they had. Billy could appreciate that. Billy could appreciate _her_ , as long as she appreciated him. Her scent was too sweet, but her touch was always soft; it held him over just enough to maintain his sanity, for someone—anyone—to look at Billy like he was worth something. 

It was a trade. That was the way life worked, and it was working just fine. That was until one morning in early July when Billy woke up feeling like death warmed over. The ache of it had settled deep in his bones in the night and Billy recognized it immediately for what it was: Only he would catch the flu in the middle of a ninety-degree summer. 

There was nothing Billy wanted more than to just stay home in bed. Well, almost nothing. But the short list of things that superseded staying in his bed were just as intangible. Neil was already up and rustling around the kitchen, the sharp scent of coffee and cigarettes wafting down the hall, creeping up from under his door. The rattle of the plates, the scrape of cutlery against ceramic from where “the family” was having breakfast set his teeth on edge. There was no way Billy’s tender stomach was about to handle Susan’s cooking and there was no way the rest of him would be able to stand up long enough to take the fallout if he didn’t eat it. So Billy did the only logical thing left available, sneaking out as quietly as he could drag himself out the door, got in his car and went to work. 

The water just makes everything worse. Watching the waves that all the bodies make in the pool leaves him simultaneously seasick and nostalgic. His head throbs in the light. The air was thick and hot, oppressive, but he was already starting to shiver. He must have a fever. He knows that means he looks like shit. 

Just how bad he looks, however, is confirmed when Karen Wheeler and the rest of the mothers arrive at the pool. The way Karen’s start of a smile morphs into a frown tells Billy all he needs to know. He’s no use to her like this. He knows that before she even bothers to drag him into the supply closet to tell him that tonight wasn’t going to work for her. That he looks rather _indisposed_ at the moment. And yeah, that kind of stings. Billy knows that he’s sick and disgusting and useless. He knows; but it still hurts for her to confirm it. But the migraine from the fever has already started to set in, piercing through the shakes under his flushed skin. So he does the only thing he can do—the only thing he knows how to do when he’s disappointed a parent and feeling too weak to fight; he shrinks as he apologizes and watches her walk away. 

By the second day, Billy felt miserable enough to put a shirt on, his fever running high enough to give him the chills while he sweats. He looks like hell. He’s aware of it. But the ache that’s settled in all the crevices of his skin, making it crawl and drip and ache, means he just can’t care about that right now. Which was a first. It didn’t really matter anyway. The Mother Brigade had stopped paying attention to him entirely, all turning their attention to Troy Desoto. Troy’s abs weren’t anywhere near as defined as Billy’s, but Troy also didn’t sneeze at them when he smiles so Billy gets it. Maternal affection was a tradeoff and he’s not holding up his end right now. He can’t make them feel good about themselves when he feels like death warmed over. 

For whatever reason, the only person at the pool that seems to still be able to look at Billy directly at all is Steve Harrington. It’s weird and intense, but despite his golden reputation, Steve’s a weird and intense kind of guy. Steve’s gaze on his skin makes it feel hot all over. Billy blames that too on the fever. Never mind that Steve has had that effect on him for a while now, making Billy feel nauseated and sick whenever he looks at him before he ever fell ill; Billy doesn’t want to think about why Steve would make his pulse spike like that if it isn’t because of his flu. 

Billy ignores him, or he tries to. Billy’s pretty good at ignoring a lot of things, but Harrington is a different sort of challenge. Even with the fever-onset of the chills, the heat of Steve’s presence has been increasing lately, Steve watching him from a lounge chair set on the other side of the pool, his gaze something that’s been growing more familiar all throughout the start of summer. Steve hadn’t always been as obvious about it as he had been that week, but part of Billy has always sensed Steve’s eyes whenever they land on his skin, his body strangely hyperalert to Steve’s stare. 

It felt like he was always watching. 

In fact, Billy’s grown so accustomed to the feeling—the weird spike of heat that prickles under his skin like a sunburn—that Billy’s body kind of now just knows Steve’s hyper-intensive presence. So much so that he can usually just close his eyes and just sort of know where Steve is at all times. 

The illness, however, must have thrown off his ability to keep tabs on Steve’s eyes. Billy swears he only closes his own eyes for a moment, but when he opens them again Steve has moved from the other end of the pool, practically teleported to stand right next to Billy’s chair. 

The height of the lifeguard seat places Steve’s head parallel to the bent spread of Billy’s knees and Billy swallows. Even sick, the proximity makes his thighs itch. 

Steve’s got really wide lips. Billy’s noticed. He notices their width even further when they twist into a frown, his expression transforming into something that isn’t disappointed, exactly, but something else. Something Billy has never really seen thrown his way before that looks kind of like concern. Billy doesn’t know what to do with that. 

“You ok, man?” Steve asks, and Billy doesn’t know what to do with that either. 

“What?” It’s not his best comeback, but he’s also suddenly dizzy and parched. More so even than he had been minutes before. It has to be the fever. 

“You don’t look so hot.” Steve flinches at his own words, face tinting pink in the direct light of the sun as he corrects, “I mean, you look like you aren’t feeling well. Maybe you should take it easy? Go home?” 

The harsh counter-flinch that shudders through Billy at that suggestion is much more pronounced than Steve’s. Billy would be embarrassed about that if all of his muscles weren’t currently trying to claw their way out of his skin. And if his mind wasn’t suddenly taken up by the sudden onslaught of images of going home early on a Saturday. 

Saturday—Neil was always home on Saturdays, indulging in his weekly ritual of beer and TV and noticing all the things that he disapproved of about the house that suddenly became Billy’s fault: the crack in the living room wall, the stain on the ceiling, the way the air conditioner rattled when it kicked on, overworked, summer heat pushing its way in to hover over the carcass that was supposed to be a home. Yeah. Going home wasn’t happening. Even the thought of it made Billy’s stomach churn. Maybe he should lean into it; It would serve Harrington right if Billy threw up on him. But then Billy would have to be the one to clean it in front of the whole pool so he settles for snapping at Steve instead. 

“Fuck you. You’re not my _mother_ , Harrington.” 

But Steve just looked at him, like he could see right through him with his head tilted, curious and considering, “No, I’m not. But maybe I think you just need someone to care.” 

Billy doesn’t have a quick enough retort for that either, nothing will come to him, his mind fuzzy, in need of air. “Fuck off,” Billy manages, finally, to mumble, only by that point Steve has already walked away. 

Steve doesn’t come back, stays seated instead on his side of the pool, lounging against a deck chair with his sunglasses on, his hair flopping in the humidity in the air. Billy can still feel Steve’s eyes on him though for the rest of the day, piercing right over the gap of the water, burning on his skin until his fever feels like a dream. 

*

The next day is worse. Billy hopes it’s the peak of whatever vile bacteria has grasped a hold and rooted into his system. He’s still pallid, feverish and hot, and he only lasts twenty minutes in the chair even under the shade before he has to tap out and let Heather take his place. He runs right into the locker showers, yelling at a few lingering brats to get the fuck out before he plummets himself under the cold spray. He doesn’t even care that his clothes are getting soaked when he doesn’t have a spare. He just curls in on himself in misery, body hot and cramping and he hates it. It makes him feel weak. Makes his father right. 

Billy’s not sure how long he’s been crouched in misery under the spray, hoping the weak water pressure will just drown him already before the curtains are jerked aside and Steve Harrington’s face pops into his eyeline. Billy blinks the water from his eyes as Steve holds up a thermos of something that smells like salt. 

“Come on, man. I brought you some soup. I can reheat it for you in the break room.” 

Steve pulls him out of the shower and hands him a towel. Billy is too miserable to argue as he wraps himself up in the fabric. The towel is lush, huge and thick and soft. The kind of quality that only Steve Harrington would own and bring to a community pool. The towel smells like Steve’s house. Billy’s never been there, but he assumes because it’s the same scent that clings to Steve’s clothes. Billy inhales it as subtly as he can as Steve reheats the soup. 

Steve brings him soup the rest of the week. Sometimes it’s noodle, sometimes it’s rice. It’s always good. Billy doesn’t know what to do about that—how to repay him. Everything is a trade. Billy knows that but he doesn’t know what to trade Harrington with. Doesn’t know what Harrington even wants. It’s confusing. 

The imbalance of it makes Billy feel panicky, adrenalized. Heart rate spiking about as much as he usually does when looking too long at Steve in general, taking in the sharp way his bones taper, the length of his legs dusted with hair. There’s nothing soft about Steve’s body; he isn’t safe. If anything, Steve is the opposite of safe. It feels downright dangerous to look at him, has always made Billy’s heart pulse all the way up in his throat. Makes it hard to speak or even swallow, mouth too dry from some sort of unquenchable thirst that starts somewhere deep in his gut. But his body feels too weak with sickness to hit him, so Billy eats Steve’s soup instead. 

*

Times passes in a blurred feverish haze. Billy feels like shit, knows he looks like shit too. But still, Billy drags himself daily to and from the pool. No one pays him much attention, except Steve. And Steve is… 

Steve is always there. 

Harrington even takes over some of the lifeguarding. Over the first few days, after Billy’s first sip of his soup, Steve also takes over watching the pool from Billy’s side, standing there with an elevated tension in his shoulders as his eyes scan the water. Eventually Troy and Heather finally figure out that Billy isn’t the best choice for the chair, letting him curl up and slump in the break room as they cover his shifts. Steve joins him there too. Feeds him more soup. 

By the sixth day of Steve’s soup parade, Billy feels better enough to respond to Steve when he talks. Billy’s pretty sure Steve’s been talking for days, but his head had been too stuffed with the fever ache of the flu to really hear the words. But Steve kept talking anyway, a dull comforting lull in the background. 

“So, you like older women?” Is the first thing Billy fully registers in the conversation the moment his brain kicks back into reality; Steve sounds genuinely curious. 

Billy hasn’t spoken in days. His throat feels raw with disuse, kind of like it does every time Neil manages to lay him out for a week. At this point Billy would take a beating any day over this goddamn flu, the illness makes him feel tender and raw in places he usually doesn’t. “What?” 

“I’ve seen you,” Steve says, like he knows that Billy knows that Steve is always watching. He doesn’t even sound ashamed of it. “You’re always, you know, flirting with the women at the pool. Never the girls our age but the older ones. You know one of them is Nancy’s mom, right?” 

Billy shrugs, feeling uneasy. Steve already seems to have arrived at some sort of conclusion, even if Billy can’t quite pin one down himself. “Oh uh, yeah.” 

“So you like ‘em older, Hargrove?” 

Billy didn’t exactly know how to answer that or why Steve cared. Steve obviously meant sex. And yeah sex was ... fine. It felt alright most of the time. A tolerable enough means to an end. What Billy really liked was what came after: the moment they would hold him, maybe stroke his hair. Those quiet few minutes where Billy felt like he had done something good. That someone soft and warm and _maternal_ saw him as something worthwhile. When they touched him in a way that was just as soft and warm and kind. Girls didn’t do that. No one did that, not to Billy. At least, not unless he worked for it. But even when he put in his best work, girls his age didn’t do that for him after. Didn’t do anything for him really. Sex was a _trade_ and Billy couldn’t figure out what girls his age had to offer him in return at all. So yeah, he liked older women. 

Billy shrugged, the muscle around his chest still feels weak. “Sure, I guess, I mean yeah.” 

But Steve just looked at him oddly, head cocked slightly like Billy had just asked a question instead of answering one. Billy doesn’t know why his response confuses Steve. The words had been simple enough, and Billy knows that Harrington isn’t actually as dumb as people think he is, so the slight frown on Steve’s face doesn’t make much sense. But the slight furrow in his brow weaves down through his jaw muscle in a way that makes the just of his chin look strong and sharp, the sight of it slightly captivating to Billy’s fever-addled brain to the point that Billy doesn’t press Steve on it further. Plus, Billy doesn’t really care if Steve’s confused. He just likes the feel of Steve’s eyes on his skin. Has grown rather used to the heat of it. Might, in some ways, at some point, have started craving it like he does the sun. 

*

The flu from hell finally fully leaves him six days later, but when Billy makes his triumphant return all styled and showered, the pool-mothers still barely look his way. Like seeing Billy sick for a week had humanized him in some way that made him less interesting to them now. Billy got that. You’re not supposed to show weakness for a reason—reasons exactly like this. No one wants to trade affection with some weak pussy. He gets that. That still doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt though. When Billy had finally managed to walk out of the locker room with his back held straight and flash Karen his signature smile only to have it be returned with a sympathetic shrug as she touched Troy’s arms, Billy gets hit with that sick wash of déjà vu all over again. It wasn’t the first time Billy had been traded in, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last, but it stings every time after the first one—also known as the day his own mother had driven away, that same sad sympathetic smile on her lips that didn’t reach the hollows of her eyes. It had taken Billy ten more years to get a license and a car to drive after her. That’s how Billy had ended up finding out his mother lived in Fresno now with two new and better sons. 

So Billy knows what it’s like to be upgraded and replaced by someone better. Knows that he’s shown weakness and his stock has plummeted. That all the work he’s put in with the mothers at the pool had been for not. It sucks. Because without the sickness overtaking all his senses, Billy is already feeling that itch again. After Neil had reminded Billy again that morning how heavy his class ring felt slapping across the flesh of something _worthless_ , Billy was already craving the touch of something soft on his skin. He needs to please someone, to prove he’s worth _something_. To make someone see him and be told he’s alright; he just needs someone to tell him he’s _OK_. 

He has nowhere to go to get that now. The mothers still won’t look at him, worried that he’s not fully healed yet. That he might still be a carrier for illnesses that will spread to their kids. No one wants to have to stay home over the summer to take care of someone who’s sick. 

By 10 minutes to close, Billy is so worked up about it his jaw has begun to ache from the tension in his skull. Tears prickle at his eyes, a hot sting under the surface that’s dangerously close to spilling over. He blinks the water away from his lashes and then suddenly Steve is there. Even now that Billy’s flu has dissipated, Steve’s presence isn’t necessarily a surprise. They’ve been walking out after close together lately. For whatever reason, Steve seems determined to watch Billy get into his car at the end of each day. Like Steve doesn’t think Billy is capable of making it by himself to his goddamn car or something. That’s something that Billy two weeks ago would have hit him for. But his energy still isn’t fully restored, and Steve’s eyes are just so brown up close, deep and flecked with slivers of silver and green. A very foreign kind of ocean that makes Billy feel like he’s forgotten how to swim. 

Billy’s own eyes burn with something bitter and wet. “Hey, man,” Steve starts before he pauses, looking shocked for a flash of a moment before he schools his features. Billy has no idea what Steve sees in his face, but it must be embarrassingly telling because Steve just reaches forward to pull Billy’s whistle over his head and blows into it sharply three times to signal the pool is closing. 

The stragglers pull themselves from the water slowly. They don’t know who blew the whistle. Probably don’t even care. A sentiment which is confirmed as Steve takes the lead on shuffling everybody out with an authoritative enough air that no one notices he’s not wearing the lifeguard reds. 

The last patron shuffles out and Steve’s there again, warm hands wrapping around Billy’s shoulders and tugging him from the chair. “Come on. Let’s go,” Steve tells him, his voice low and soothing as he coaxes Billy towards the parking lot as he says, “It’s OK, man. You’re alright.” 

*

They don’t talk about Billy’s minor melt down by the Hawkins Community pool. Billy’s grateful for it. He wouldn’t have talked about it to Harrington anyway if he asked, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to deal with telling him that. The ghost of the soft pressure from Steve’s palms still linger on his shoulders. He feels a little better. 

*

One night, near the end of July, Steve intercepts Billy on his day off as Billy is lounging on his hood at the Q-Mart, not wanting to drive home. On some level Billy had known Steve must work the night shift, considering how much of his days he spends at the pool. But that idle assumption is confirmed when Steve pulls up alongside him in the lot, scoops hat scrunched up and tossed onto the passenger seat. Billy watches as Steve rolls down his window, hears him when he tells Billy he should stop by the mall sometime, return the favor of keeping him entertained at his place of employment. The invite sounds casual, but it feels heavy, somehow. Like showing up will mean something even though Billy couldn’t say what. At least, not out loud. Never out loud. And yet, knowing that doesn’t stop the thought of doing it anyway from shooting a buzz of adrenaline straight into his skull. The anticipation of it tingles under Billy’s skin like Steve gaze. 

Billy manages a non-committal “maybe” through his exhale of smoke, his cigarette suddenly tasting too much like ash and desperation. 

The Beemer carries Steve off down the street and Billy’s eyes trail after it, thinking it over in the fading dusk. Billy’s never had friends like Steve—privileged, pretty, charming—and something in Billy knows that he shouldn’t be that adrenalized by the idea of dropping by to see a _friend_. It’s the same something that makes him wonder if this was the break in him that his mother must have seen that made her leave. That make all the mothers grow tired of him and dissatisfied after a while. Neil has told him enough times that it is. That no one wants a ‘faggot’ for a son. 

Billy stays stuck right where he is for a long drag of time; there’s nothing but smoke in his lungs and sour memories as the sun sets. There’s no great reward waiting for him if he stays parked there all night. Still, Billy waits another hour in the lot before he drives out to the mall. 

Starcourt is busy for a Tuesday, but that kind of thing happens in the summer, people getting a bit looser with their routines in the heat. There’s a short line at the Scoop’s counter, long enough that Billy takes a seat to wait, figures he’ll wait for it to clear out a little bit before he tries to talk to Steve. He takes in the other people, a habit he’s picked up from the pool, eyes always sharp and alert like the people around him might be stupid enough to drown on dry land. 

Billy notices rather quickly that there is a mother there with her two kids, the brats running chaotic and uncontrolled around the display case, smudging greedy, ungrateful fingers all over the glass. She looks frazzled, over worked and under-appreciated. Billy clocks that, taking her in. She’s exactly the kind of woman Billy has trained himself to notice. She’s got strawberry blonde hair and kind, tired eyes and Billy knows he could appreciate her for a trade. It’s been so long since Billy’s heard any kind of soft words from a mother—since before he got sick at the height of the summer—and just looking at her and the way she still smiles indulgently at her hell spawn sends that familiar spike of pain through his chest. That all too familiar feeling that makes him feel hollow, like he’s drowning on nothing but empty lungs and too thin air. The kind of pain that only gets worse if he dwells too long on the shored fragments of memories that come with it: blonde curls, soft hands, and lilies. 

The whole practiced routine washes over him like an impulse and he’s out of his seat before he fully even registers what he’s doing. The shop is small; it doesn’t take that long to cross the tile, maybe a simple long stride or two before he’s cocking his hip against the glass, eyes on the woman as he offers her a smile and a leer. He plucks one of the ice cream cones out of the holder above the counter, some order already placed and waiting to be retrieved by the person who paid for it. Billy would have never ordered vanilla himself, the flavor too sweet, but it’s worth it when the woman looks at him, her spark of interest unmistakable as he licks at the cone, swirls his tongue into the melt of it, lets a little bit slip onto his chin before wiping it with his fingers, framing the wet slick of his lips. Her breath grows heavier, dilation in her eyes as her brats continue to run screaming through the store. 

But before he’s able to even introduce himself, Steve suddenly sidelines him, dragging him through the doors to the backroom until Billy’s back crashes against the wall. The weight of Steve’s body follows him, caging him in, warm and surprisingly heavy in a way that makes Billy’s breath catch. 

Steve’s eyes flash; he presses in closer. “What are you doing?” Steve asks, low, challenging, in that way of his—like he already knows the answer and Billy doesn’t. 

Billy tries to force a scowl. He should be angry that Steve just blocked him from a score. Real men didn’t like it when other men blocked them from getting laid. He should be furious with Steve. But Steve’s chest is warm, his breath soft against Billy’s neck and he isn’t. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” 

“No,” Steve shakes his head, the flop of his hair brushing against Billy’s cheek. “What are you _really_ doing?” 

“The fuck?” 

“Do you _want_ to kiss them?” Steve asks, once again in a tone that tells Billy it’s not really a question at all, but a reveal: words that should never be spoken out loud. Billy’s whole interior core seizes at the question. Something in the other boy’s tone alarming, dangerous—because _Steve knows_. Maybe not all of it, the whole truth, but he knows Billy doesn’t want the things he should. 

Billy chokes on the thought of it, his throat tight, an open grave. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Billy knows he has to be careful, make every sound he can a threat. Steve’s body is just so warm, and something in Billy wants to melt beneath it, but he can’t, his spine too rigid, holding him up and still frozen in fear. 

If Billy had been at all successful in sounding menacing, it doesn’t work. Steve is too focused; has already seen Billy laid weak and low. He is no longer scared of him, if Steve ever even was. 

“I mean just that.” Billy doesn’t know if he’s ever seen Steve so determined about something. Everything about Steve sears hot. Even the polyester of his uniform is starched hard and unyielding, scratching at Billy’s chest like the stubbled bristles of a beard. “Do you _want_ to do it? Do those women turn you on? Does your skin get hot when you touch them? Does it get you hard—so hard you’d do anything for them to touch you back? Do you really feel that need—that electricity whenever you’re near them?” 

Billy feels a lot of things when he’s near “them”: panic that he will never be enough, a bitter pain momentarily soothed with the accompanying swirl of hope and shame, a longing chase of evasive shadows that he can never quite catch. Steve’s questions don’t belong in the trade equation. That’s not how sex works. Billy’s had a lot of it, he would know. Sex is an offering, a means to an end, not something that has ever been governed by any kind of electric need, no spark or heat. But something about the way Billy’s blood itches when it has Steve’s own pulse this close—the way those questions fall from the twist of Harrington’s lips and how all Billy can think in response is, _Steve_ —makes Billy think that maybe that’s not how sex should be. That maybe sex could be something else. 

Maybe his body doesn’t really know what it means to connect. 

Steve is so close as Billy shakes his head, eyes fixated on Steve’s lips, the way they twist hypnotically around his words. Billy can’t believe that he finds it in himself to say it back, to admit that Steve might be right, but he still feels his own mouth open, hears the way Steve asks him again if _those women_ are really what Billy wants and the way his own voice sounds, rasped and quiet, as his mouth manages to form the word, _“No.”_

Those lips of Steve’s flicker, a hint of a smile. There’s a slight chip in the perfect row of his teeth, a slope of his incisor that makes his smile sharper, “Do you feel it now?” 

Billy’s whole world narrows, _throbs_. He does. Has always known on some visceral level that the heat Steve’s presence always induces under his skin can only be described as “electric,” _magnetic_ \--Everything that Billy has always been told is the wrong kind of wanting. “Fuck Steve—" 

“Can I kiss you?” Steve interrupts. 

Billy nods—tightly, barely a motion but it’s there. 

Steve studies him, head tilted with his eyes wide open. “Do you _want_ me to?” 

Billy’s own eyes flutter, the sudden rush of heat forcing them shut. “ _Yes._ ”

And Steve does. 

Steve’s kiss is nothing like a mother’s. It’s hot and deep and desperate and Billy feels it in his soul. He’s never been kissed like that. He’s never kissed back like that, but he’s a quick study, responds in kind. 

Billy’s only ever kissed as a means to an end. A way to get what he wants in the aftermath. He’s never had this, a body pressed against his, lips drinking him in in a way that Billy never wants to reach an end. Just wants to draw it out, stay right there forever in Steve’s electric embrace. 

But they are still at Steve’s work, the cold steel supporting Billy’s shoulders is the god damn walk in freezer, and eventually they do have to break away. Billy’s breath is heavy. The fever is back only it’s brighter, something light and expansive that wants to swallow Steve Harrington whole. A wretched moan cuts through the air as Steve pulls away and Billy realizes it’s _him_. It’s a foreign feeling; Billy’s never made sounds before, certainly not ones that are ripped from him, forced out of his core. 

“I’ve wanted you to, too,” Steve says, before he goes back in, lips sure and steady, a promise for more. And despite the cold chill of the room, the rigidity of his spine collapses, and Billy finally melts. 

*

“Why do you do it?” Steve asks three days later from his stance next to Billy at the pool, eyes scanning the crop of women who have just come in with their kids, each handing the children a fist-full of dollars for sodas as they settle into their chairs. Billy doesn’t need to ask what “it” is. He knows; he shrugs. 

Steve hums. Thoughtful. Considering. 

*

Steve takes him to Joyce Byers’ house first. Joyce likes to watch a movie every Wednesday night. She makes a whole night of it: popcorn and hot chocolate and piles of blankets even at the tail end of summer, claiming it’s the best way to push over and through the middle of a long week. It used to be a tradition between her and Will that has since turned into a tradition between her, Will, and Steve. Will and Steve always let Joyce pick the movie. She’s got good taste, and all of them know it’s the only way they ever get to see anything that doesn’t have aliens or robots in it. 

Steve picks Billy up on a Wednesday from the pool. The week already feels long after Neil had taken away his keys. Billy mutters “long week” and Steve smiles and says he knows just the thing. 

Twenty minutes later they are pulling into the Byers’ driveway and Billy immediately stiffens. 

Steve glances over, wry smile on his lips, “Relax. I didn’t take you here to kill you. Chill.” 

Billy’s not completely sure he believes that. Not to mention that Billy knows he’s fucked up the kitchen of this place and having to look some disappointed _mother_ in the eye is not exactly what he needs—ever. But Steve doesn’t give Billy much of a choice. Not with those eyes and that coaxing pout to his lips. In under ten minutes Steve has somehow managed to talk Billy out of the car, pulling him over the threshold and into the living room. Joyce Byers and the littlest freak of the geek squad look up at them as Steve pushes him through the door. 

Steve raises his hands up in a form of presentation, a magician conjuring a trick, “This is Billy.” 

Billy panics. He has put in zero foundation work with Joyce. She has never been to the pool and Billy has avoided her store. He’s been sidelined by the surprise and Billy feels so out of his element suddenly that he can’t even offer up any of the smiles he knows make a women’s eyelashes flutter. He’s got nothing. Billy waits for the frown of recognition. The disapproval followed by the demand to get out. But Joyce Byers simply offers him a smile of her own, something kind and semi-distracted as she fiddles with the VCR. 

“Welcome, Billy. Steve, grab him another mug for coco. It’s tradition! Billy, have you seen--? 

Billy’s too numb-struck to hear the rest of what Joyce is saying. He’s never been automatically welcomed into someone’s home. Not so casually. Not without first negotiating his end of the trade. But Joyce’s eyes don’t even linger, thoroughly focused on the plight of an unrewound tape. 

Before Billy can process the whole thing further, Steve shoves a ceramic cup with the St. Louis Arch on it into his hand and pulls Billy over to the other couch, sitting down right next to him in a way that has to look too close if anyone looks too closely. But no one does and Billy is settled by the heat of his body and the scent of Steve’s shampoo. 

Halfway through the movie, the littlest Byers turns to Steve, his tone excited as he points toward the screen and announces, “That girl totally looks like mom!” 

The woman is objectively attractive. Beautiful in a haunting sort of way. It’s the perfect in for a line. To say something that will make Joyce Byers blush and look at him differently—to make it known he’s available for a trade. But Steve’s body is so close, warm against his side. His mismatched socks over his long slender feet that are twisted and tucked just so under Billy’s calf make Billy smile and he just lets the opportunity pass right by. It’s not like him. But it’s fine. There’s blankets and coco and Joyce had asked him if his drink had needed more chocolate syrup and Steve had snorted and assured everyone that he had put enough in to make the spoon stand up straight and he feels kind of warm and soft already. 

They go back the following week, and the week after that. Billy’s starting to develop an appreciation for a larger range of cinema. A month or so into their movie nights, Steve calls him up on a Friday afternoon and asks, “What are you doing for dinner?” 

Fridays are the night Neil and Susan go out and Billy’s exempt from trying to choke down Susan’s cooking. Steve knows this, just like Billy knows Steve’s only asking as a courtesy. 

“I don’t know. What am I doing for dinner?” 

Steve hums thoughtfully through the line, “I’ll pick you up at six.” 

Billy has no idea what to expect, but the last thing he would have guessed is that Steve would take him to some unknown split level in the middle of some suburban cul-de-sac. 

Billy raises a brow, taking in the obviously handmade wreath garishly guarding the door in a burst of plastic peonies. “Come here often?” 

Steve shrugs, casual. “Yeah, actually. Friday’s D and D night at the Wheelers,” Steve offers, like that’s some kind of explanation. 

Karen’s never had Billy inside her home, but Billy’s had to drive Max around this shitty town enough to know and say with conviction, “This isn’t the Wheelers.” 

“I’m aware.” 

Billy doesn’t really like to think about Nancy. Even the thought of her name fills Billy with a feeling he’s only recently learning to map and define—jealousy. But yeah, he supposes that Steve would know the Wheeler’s place. 

“So what are we doing here?” 

Steve ignores the question as he goes up and rings the bell. The doorbell kicks off with a harmonized sound that seems to be a chimed rendition of a song comprised of synthetic cats meowing. 

Billy scoffs, thoroughly confused, “What the Hell?” 

Before Steve can answer, a short woman with curly hair and thick glasses opens the door. It sounds as if she was already in mid-sentence before she greets them, but the altered trajectory of her conversation doesn’t slow her down. 

“Steven!” Her voice is loud but soft, a paradox Billy can’t quite reconcile. When the woman sees him, there is no change in her expression, her warm manic energy taking his presence in stride. “You brought a friend! How wonderful! Do you like piaya?” The woman turns to Billy, eyes wide behind her glasses with a feverish excitement that, like Joyce Byers, doesn’t seem to be all that particularly interested in lingering on him for long. This woman in particular seems to have an attention span that won’t rest long on anything, but her smile is kind and her energy hedging on infectious, a social contagion. “Dustin won’t eat it,” she continues, like that’s some kind of explanation to her previous lines of thought. “He won’t eat anything that doesn’t come out of a Kraft box, so dear Steven here is kind enough to help an old woman out and try my recipes. And I made piaya! But I can’t seem to get the muscovado to melt right--”

Billy actually does know how to make piaya—and the podrida the woman insists on making with it. It’s an odd combination, but so is she. There aren’t too many things that Billy has been able to apply in Hawkins from his time in California, and he had never expected that one to make the short list, but there’s something satisfying about the surprise on Steve’s face when Billy nods, followed by the pride in Steve’s eyes when Billy says he can help. 

It’s not until another twenty minutes later, after the woman has already stuffed everything into the oven, that they are finally introduced. Steve taking a momentary gap in the conversation to slip in a succinct introduction: “This is Billy. Billy, this is Claudia Henderson. Dustin’s mom.” 

Somehow the diner is good. Billy had maybe never thought that he’d find himself on a Friday night at a dining table in the suburbs by choice, but he’s never felt so oddly comfortable at a kitchen table. The conversation is easy enough seeing as how Claudia Henderson takes up most of it, and after Joyce, Billy is a little less wary, albeit still confused, by a mother letting him in their home without first negotiating a trade. 

“How’s the food?” Claudia eventually asks, “It’s not too hot for you, is it?” She asks with such genuine concern. 

And Billy knows this is his moment, his possible in. He could tell Claudia all about how _hot_ he can take it, especially if she’s the one dishing it out. He could call her 

_Claudia_ with an extra roll of his tongue so she can really hear all the vowels. But the dinner is already made, the bursts of flavor full and comforting. Steve looks so happy, his cheeks flush and temples sweating from the heat of the food on his midwestern palette and once again Billy finds that he feels welcome and... safe. 

“Not at all,” Billy says instead. “This is delicious, Ms. Henderson. Thank you.” Steve and Claudia beam at him and Billy doesn’t regret letting the opportunity slide. 

*

Steve takes him to the Sinclair’s the first Sunday after school starts back up. Billy recognizes the house, it’s unassuming facade giving him similar feelings of dread as that first _second_ time he’d pulled up to the Byers’. A full summer with the brats at the pool had repaired things with Lucas enough. He’s an alright enough kid: brave, but nowhere near the level it would take to push Max around. Billy knows what men do to women, has seen it all his life. The hurt, the control. He’s seen how Susan was with Neil at first, how her starry eyes had faded after marrying him into a constant drain of apprehension that Billy remembers seeing echoed in his mother’s. Max had looked at Lucas with stars—still does. But, turns out, Max still has it in her to hit a man back, so at least until Neil finds out about it, that’s one less thing for Billy to worry about. 

So Billy is as good as he can be about a kid that’s trying to fingerbang his step sister. That doesn’t mean he’s prepared to go into the kid’s house though. Lucas hadn’t told his parents about the night at the Byers’ and wanted to keep it that way, but Billy still feels the guilt of knowing the weight of throwing a kid against a wall. Of now knowing what it feels like for Neil to lift him. How easy and light and breakable a younger, smaller body feels. 

Billy shakes his head, feet planted in the driveway and Steve rolls his eyes, gives him a push. There’s a note on the door, a post-it that reads, “Come on in,” and Steve takes out his key chain that holds far more keys than he has homes, flips to the fourth one on the ring and clicks it into the lock. Steve had listed off all their corresponding slots once before, one night during a stolen moment together in Steve’s room: the Byers’, the Henderson’s, the Sinclair’s, the police station (for some reason Steve won’t really talk about), even the Wheeler’s. Steve keeps them all with him at all times, all except his own house key; Steve always keeps the doors to own house unlocked, muttering about how real monsters aren’t stopped by deadbolts anyway. Billy isn’t exactly sure what that’s supposed to mean, but locks have never stopped his father either, so Billy supposes he can appreciate the metaphor. 

All the walls inside the Sinclair’s are yellow, midcentury and modern. Billy meets Monica Sinclair for the first time at her kitchen table, large cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of ungraded papers in the other. Neil had always told Billy that people like the Sinclair's only ever made a living selling drugs, their children or themselves. But Monica Sinclair is a middle school math teacher who despite the lack of high fashion stores at Starcourt, still manages to dress like a high-powered attorney from Chicago, exuding such an impressive level of confidence that Billy doesn’t know if he’s intimidated or inspired. 

“Welcome,” she tells him, and there’s that word again. “Steven has told me a lot about you. Do you prefer Billy or William?” 

Billy’s never been asked that before, never knew he had a choice in the matter, but he manages to tell her that either is fine. Part of him even feels more seen when she decides on William, said in a way that makes Billy feel like she’s reading in him some kind of future potential. 

“And what about you Steven? Have you finished that paper?” 

Steve goes on to answer her, and that is how Billy learns that Steve has been taking a few courses at the community college, just a few starting that semester in case he ever wants to transfer. 

Mrs. Sinclair asks Billy if he’s taking classes with Steve and Billy responds that he isn’t—that he’s a senior, still at the high school and won’t be graduating until the spring. 

Monica nods, turning to Steve, “So about that paper…”

“I’m almost done,” Steve hedges. 

“Good, she says, “then you can finish it now.” Pulling out a chair at the kitchen table for Steve, she turns back to Billy. Billy can read the school teacher in her loud and clear, finds he doesn’t want to disappoint her. Even more so than he usually feels about any mother who might offer their approval. “What about you? Do you have any English homework?” 

Billy had already finished anything English related for the week and shakes his head. But there’s something in her eyes that makes him add, “I have some math though.” She smiles, a new kind of approval. “Great. that’s my favorite subject,” and pulls out a chair for Billy too. Billy sits down. 

“There’s a trick to bell curves,” she says a little bit later, looking up from her grading to peer over at Billy’s work. “I could teach you if you’d like.” 

And yeah, this, this is Billy’s moment. This is where Billy could say something about her curves, let her know that if she’s up for a little division, then Billy bets she could teach him _all sorts of things_. But bell curves actually are kind of confusing and no one has ever offered to help him with them before. And Steve is already chewing on a pencil, leaving little teeth marks in the wood, pink tongue tempting and shining, so instead he sighs, says, “yes, please, I’d appreciate that.” 

Mrs. Sinclair nods, sticking her pen into the empty cup of coffee before reaching for a pencil. She walks Billy through half of the worksheet’s problems before holding out a hand for Steve’s English report to read it over. Billy’s a little bit in awe, knows Susan can barely balance a checkbook without Neil’s help. He had no idea parents ever actually helped any children with their homework, thought that was just a joke on sitcoms—wonders if this is how Max had managed to somehow jump from a C to a B+ in biology. 

Billy’s so stupefied by the whole ordeal that he barely notices Lucas come in the door, even though the kid comes barreling through it, throwing his shoes vaguely in the direction of the matt before skidding in front of the fridge to open it. It’s the kind of behavior that if his father had seen Billy do as a kid, Neil would have worked him over good, laid him out for the rest of the day. But Monica just tsks and tells the kid to breathe, adds, “There’s fruit and cheese already cut; but make sure to bring that plate back down from your room this time, please.” 

Lucas nods, face already stuffed, swallows, says, “Hey, Steve, I need a ride tomorrow.” 

Steve frowns. “I’m sorry man, but I’m working tomorrow.” Steve looks pained, instantaneously guilty, and Billy bumps his knee into Steve’s under the table. It’s not his life’s purpose to drive the brats around. But Billy knows that Steve likes it for some reason. That he likes having things to fix and take care of. That it makes Steve proud of himself to do it. Billy can’t stand to see Steve looking so crushed at having to say “no” to a simple ride. So it’s for Steve’s sake, and maybe a little bit of his own guilt when it comes to Lucas, that makes Billy cut in. 

“I’m not working tomorrow. I’ll drive you.” 

All three of them turn to look at him, three sets of eyebrows raised like Billy had offered the kid his kidney. “You’re going wherever it is with Max anyway, right? I’ll be driving her as it is. Might as well take one car—give you two more time to make hopeless dumb cartoon heart eyes at each other or whatever eleven-year-olds do.” 

Lucas studies him evenly, working him out, only to scrunch up his face in defense at the end. “We’re both _thirteen_.” 

“Yeah,” Billy agrees, “Same thing. You’re still _kids_ and not sucking face in my car. Pretty sure your mother would want me to set _some_ boundaries. You two will just have to sneak off and do that in the privacy of your own time like all the other good lovestruck pre-teens.” 

Lucas shrugs, eyes him over, says, “Yeah, ok. Cool.”

“Cool,” Billy repeats. And Lucas smiles, something small, hesitant but genuine, way more accustomed than Billy, apparently, to the concept of second chances and forgiveness, and shakes his hand. An agreement. A binding contract. A truce. The kid is alright. 

Billy catches Mrs. Sinclair after, watching them both from her side of the table, a ghost of smile in her eyes in a way that Billy thinks she might have known something about their history after all. 

**

As the fall rolls in it becomes a routine. A cycle set on repeat. 

Billy had never known what it was like to have a mother. And he certainly never knew there were mothers like these. 

Mothers like Joyce Byers. 

_Joyce Byers_ , Joyce lets Billy be himself— gives him a cigarette whenever he asks for one and doesn’t even tell him he needs to quit. She tells Billy it’s his life and his body and that he should let into it whatever—and _only_ whatever he wants to let into—into it. Joyce Byers is untraditionally supportive like that. Respects Billy’s autonomy and always knows how to make a situation better without imposing on his privacy. 

It only takes a handful of weeks into the fall before Billy feels like he can show up there alone, an impromptu decision one evening when Steve had been out of town and Neil had left him needing stitches in a spot he couldn’t quite reach. The gash had hit close to his spine, nicking the nerves in a way that made him feel woozy, and he hadn’t known where to go. Only his subconscious apparently _had_ known and he had driven to the Byers’ place in a haze. Joyce had looked at him from where he was slumping over on her porch and pulled him inside. And they had made a night of it: disinfectant, painkillers, and stitches while the littlest Byers’ kid made them all popcorn and put on ghostbusters. 

After that night, it becomes sort of a _thing_ , Billy going to Joyce’s whenever things are too bad for Steve to see. When Billy just needs a place that he can cry and be weak and not feel like piling all that shit on Steve. Steve would do it; Billy knows he would. Steve likes to fix things, but Billy doesn’t always want to be that to Steve. For Steve to see him as something he always needs to fix. 

It doesn’t feel so imbalanced to seek out help from Joyce. She knows all the signs of violence and how to patch them up. She doesn’t ever need to ask where Billy got them from, and he doesn’t need to ask her how she already knows. It’s like how soldiers do it sometimes—the body language and the marks that they recognize in each other. Because Billy knows what men do to women and their children, and Joyce Byers had been no exception. She’d served her time in a domestic war. 

But other times, Billy goes to the Byers’ to see Steve specifically. Steve has a whole mansion of a house to himself, but Steve still spends most of his time at the Byers’ house anyway. They both do. It’s safe there. Joyce just smiles whenever Steve and Billy touch. A brush of Steve’s hand across Billy’s waist in the kitchen, or the times she catches Billy tipping his back into Steve’s chest. She’s the first person, other than Steve, that Billy admits his _abnormality_ to out loud. He’s terrified and apprehensive, but something tells him he needs to do it—that he needs a mother to know. 

He tells her and he survives. She smiles— _hugs_ him—tells him Steve is a catch. Kind and warm and caring —that Billy has good taste—bets him that when Steve gets older he’s still going to have an incredible head of hair. Billy gets to touch Steve more at the Byers’ place after that. Gets to let Steve stroke his hair as they watch TV, kiss him as he’s cooking. He gets to be himself in someone’s home. And it is, when Steve is pressed warm against his side as they watch a movie, and Joyce and Billy laugh together at the same jokes on the screen and it makes Steve smile, it _feels_ like a home. 

And then there’s mothers like Claudia Henderson. Billy had never known there were mother’s like Claudia Henderson. _Claudia Henderson_ cooks so much food — the whole house smells like sugar, melted butter and vanilla. There’s always something baking. Billy feels the tension drain from his muscles whenever he walks past the door. It’s just impossible to be angry with all that sugar in the air. 

Claudia feeds anyone whenever they need it, Billy included, no matter what time of night he and Steve show up at her home. But it’s sometime in October, after two full months of dinners with her and Steve that Billy shows up on her porch on his own. It had been the kind of night Billy had experienced in variations plenty of times before: Neil wouldn’t let him join dinner late and he had missed lunch to take that makeup test in calc that he had missed the previous Thursday because he had been out with another concussion. It was the kind of thing Billy had survived on his own plenty of times before, usually by picking up a waitress at some diner somewhere with whom he could trade a quick fuck for some leftovers. But Billy hadn’t been able to do that since Steve first kissed him—had slowly but steadily grown so accustomed to the craved heat and security of Steve’s body that he couldn’t even get it up for anyone else, his once hardened resolve for The Trade dissipating even when food was on the line. 

But Neil had taken his keys and his wallet and Billy had just been so hungry that he went on autopilot, body seeking out food wherever he could find it and somehow knowing the Henderson’s was the place to go. He shows up on the Henderson’s porch like he had at the Byers’, awkward and hunched and expecting a swift rejection. But as with Joyce, Mrs. Henderson had taken one look and pulled him right in—reheated a casserole, dripping salt and cheeses, while she told Billy all about this informercial she had seen about a new kind of needle for crochet. How she had always preferred knitting but that everyone seemed to be into crochet these days so she might want to give it a try. 

The curly-haired kid of Steve’s, Dustin, had stormed into the house that night around eight, complaining about leftovers, and Claudia had rolled her eyes fondly and made him something fresh. Billy had been ready to snap at the kid to show his mother some god damn respect, but Claudia just beamed at him as she dished the remains of the casserole onto Billy’s plate. “It’s alright dear. You need to eat more food anyway. Teenagers always need more calories. Metabolisms like the Hoover Dam. You’re all just so skinny! Brownies! You boys need brownies.” 

Dustin hadn’t argued, never does when the prospect of dessert is on the table, so neither did Billy. Dustin stared him down as Claudia mixed batter in the kitchen, singing some kind of show tune. Billy had already been pretty sure for a while that Dustin had to know more than he’s said about how often Billy spends time with Steve. The kid keeps a creepy level of tabs on Steve’s whereabouts at all times. 

“You better not eat _all_ the brownies,” was Dustin’s final conclusion to his presence, and well, that sounded like a square-enough deal. Billy couldn’t remember the last time someone had baked him a homemade dessert. The chocolate melt of is hot on his tongue and it _tastes_ like a home. 

And then there are mothers like Monica Sinclair. Billy had never known there were mothers like Monica Sinclair. _Monica Sinclair_ gives Billy a quiet place of shelter whenever a storm is brewing. It’s not that Billy can’t handle the hurricane that controls his father’s temper, it’s just that whenever Neil raises his voice to a bit too loud, starts pacing the house, or tells Billy again that he’s stupid, Billy finds it hard to do his homework at home. It happens just like that one night, when Billy can hear the man that he calls his father pacing in the living room, every shout at the tv filtering right through the thin walls making him flinch. Billy had spent thirty minutes on one math problem. Steve was at a night class. Neil had slapped his hand down on the coffee table and Billy just kind of _bolts_. 

He shows up at the Sinclair’s. Once again, he wasn’t really sure why, but it’s where the Camaro carries him. Monica Sinclair opens the door, he’s jittery and wide-eyed and, like the others, she pulls him into the house. 

“Umm,” Billy starts, feeling embarrassed and unusually small. Tired. “I was hoping I could maybe do my homework in your kitchen?” It sounds unbelievably pathetic said out loud, but Monica seems to know in the way that all of this strange subset of Steve’s mothers seem to just _know_ and she nods. 

“Of course, honey. You know where the table is.” 

She checks on him thirty minutes later. Big fuzzy slippers, curlers, and a mug of tea. She holds out her hand for his homework and he hands it over. She drinks chamomile as she checks over his work. There was something soothing in the scent of the kitchen from the drink, something familiar and yet so foreign from the way that it isn’t followed up by any accompanying shame. The floral scent just lingers in the air, offering comfort and peace without taking anything in return. 

“Try number twelve again,” she tells him. “Other than that, nice job.” 

Some pipsqueak of a kid comes in the kitchen then, looking for some juice. Billy’s never caught her name, but out of all the snot-nosed brats that run around their mother’s houses, she’s definitely the best. The kid’s face is scrunched up in confusion at his presence, which is fair. There’s no reason Billy should be in her kitchen with her mother and a pile of textbooks after dark. He’s already scrambling for an excuse when the kid shoots the books an exasperated eye-roll like the sight was common enough and she’s all the more offended for it. 

The kid throws her head back, stamping her foot, “Another NERD?!” 

The accusation is so unexpected—so far from anything Billy has ever been accused of in his _life_ that he can’t help snorting. Mrs. Sinclair offers some comment about the girl’s ‘A+’ on her book report, pointing to the mark hanging proudly on the fridge, and the kid looks back at her like she’s been gravely betrayed, grabs her juice from the fridge and stomps her way back up the stairs. The whole scene is so _dramatic_ , the kid so wildly precocious and so completely free to express herself, to be as loud as she wants, say what she wants, and the sight of it is both liberating and hilarious. And Billy can’t help it—he _laughs_ —the feeling of it foreign and a little panicky until Mrs. Sinclair shakes her head and joins him, her chuckle loud and throaty and calming. Billy hasn’t heard the sound of real laughter in years. It sounds like a home. 

***

Somehow the year turns into May and Billy is _graduating_ , turning eighteen on the eighteenth and getting out of his father’s house. There was a time that Billy had thought he never would, the ghost of the memories of a childhood he’d never have were once too strong to let go of. But the world seems a little bit safer now, stable. 

Billy feels anchored, even calm, sometimes; it’s a radically different feeling than he’s used to, but Billy knows that Steve is at its center. He knows because he’s calm right then, in Steve’s space, in the backyard of the Harrington’s otherwise empty house, in another rare stolen moment alone. Steve’s skin shines in the reflection of the pool. Billy’s been teaching him how to tan, schooling him on the alchemy of the proper ratios of sun block to oil. Steve is beautiful in the sunlight, radiant. And Billy knows, when looking at Steve sprawled out on his deck chair by the water, that this is where It began—whatever strange moment that had been set into motion had happened just like this two months shy of a year ago while looking at Steve over the water. The moment when Steve had decided to build a bridge through the waves and let Billy in. 

He knows that Steve, in his own way, had saved him. Had welcomed Billy into his world and showed him so many more ways that love and lust could be, both separated or conjoined, and had let Billy know what it was like to live without the expectations of a trade, replaced it with a new system, something unconditional. 

Billy really looks at Steve now, hair even longer than it had been when Billy had first met him and donning a pair of aviators where his wayfarers used to be, looking wild and carefree under the sun, like Billy has maybe rubbed off a bit on Steve right back. 

And then there’s the coffee mug that sits beside Steve on the corner of the pool’s edge, some crack novelty glass that the kids had gotten him as a joke on Mother’s Day that Steve has been drinking his beer out of all week. Billy knows Steve’s both exasperated and amused by it, but that Steve is also a little proud, pleased that he has left an impact in the ways that he has. That he’s needed, necessary to the well-being of so many people and that on some level some of those people see that. 

“‘Number one mom,’ huh?” Billy teases, not for the first time since Steve had started using it, pointing at the cup. Steve takes a long pull from the mug, as if that alone makes some sort of point. Billy simply watches the way Steve swallows, his body tilting forward, automatically drawn in closer by the way Steve chases the foam that washes up onto his upper lip with his tongue. And Billy can’t help it; he bends all the way down to aid him. Tastes the hops from the beer on Steve’s mouth, mixing with the sunshine and chlorine. 

Steve opens his mouth, lets Billy in. “Hey now,” Steve says eventually, pulling back as if affronted, but Billy can tell he’s teasing, all drama for the sheer sake of it, “I’ve been told I can be quite maternal.” 

Steve’s hair is wet from the pool water, the strands cool against the thread of Billy’s fingers. But Billy can still feel the heat of him everywhere in that way that Billy has come to learn feels nothing like a mother. And Steve isn’t a mother, not really, not at all; he’s something else, something maybe even _better_ , at least better than Billy has ever known. Because Steve is just a boy, like Billy, who grew up with a special kind of void, another boy who knew something about what it was like to have a mother out there somewhere whose absence from her child’s life was a choice. Steve was a boy who somehow, despite that, had learned to make better choices and had made his own home, stitched and patched together as it was. A boy who, in kind, had opened up the way for Billy to make better choices too, and then Steve had even shared that hand-spun home with Billy— _was_ that home for Billy. 

Billy pushes the hair away from Steve’s face for him, although he knows it’s just an excuse to touch. Not that he needs one. But Steve’s hair is soft. He keeps less product in it during the summer months, and Billy touches it every time he can. Just because he can. 

“Maternal,” Billy repeats. The word feels different on his tongue than it used to. Has less power over him, less of that abstract, crippling control. There’s enough neutrality around it now for Billy to be able to look Steve in the eye and say, lightly, deadpanned, but also somehow totally _true_ , “That’s not exactly _sexy,_ Harrington.” 

“Yeah,” Steve shrugs, voice going softer, a bit more serious as he gives Billy The Look— the one that always seems to pierce right through to Billy’s very soul—as he offers him a smile that he presses back into Billy’s lips, until the only air Billy breathes in is his. 

Everything feels different with Steve, motions and movements that Billy has done so many times before. But never like this. Never in the way that feels so _complete_ , far too burning and bright to let any shadows of a memory linger: no elusive voids to fill, or conditional bonds to barter. Just Steve. 

“Well,” Steve says and his mouth, the electricity, Steve’s body against his: it feels _right._ “Maybe it’s not always supposed to be.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @ False-North !:)


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